Sustainable product and supply chain solutions provider Makersite announced today that it has raised €18 million in a Series A investment round, with proceeds used to expand its supply chain analysis capabilities and drive customer acquisition.

Founded in 2018, Stuttgart, Germany-based Makersite is an AI & data platform, aimed at powering sustainable product and supply chain decisions at scale. The company’s solutions help manufacturing enterprises solve complex challenges across the entire value chain, mapping a company’s portfolio of products, suppliers, and manufacturing processes against more than 140 material and supply chain databases, and providing “digital twins” of each product and how they are made, used, and disposed of.

The platform is used by companies including Microsoft, Vestas, Cummins and Procter & Gamble.

Neil D’Souza, Founder of Makersite, said:

 “We put decades of experience into solving a problem that has eluded the manufacturing industry until now. In an increasingly complex environment, how do you make better products faster? One of the answers we found is to simplify and decentralize decision-making by providing accurate, instantaneous, and actionable multi-criteria data on sustainability, cost, and risk implications of decisions.”

Makersite’s financing comes as corporate sustainability efforts increasingly turn to focus on companies’ supply chains, which often represent their primary source of impact and ESG risk. In many sectors, for example, value chain emissions outside of companies’ direct control, or “Scope 3” emissions, typically account for the vast majority of their climate footprint.

The funding round was led by Hitachi Ventures, the global venture capital arm of Hitachi, Ltd., and Silicon Valley-based VC fund Translink Capital. Additional investors included VC fund KOMPAS and seed-investor Planet A.

Tobias Jahn, Partner at Hitachi Ventures, said:

“The market needs a solution that will help design tomorrow’s sustainable products today. For enterprises to become greener and ready for a sustainable economy, understanding the product’s environmental footprint and its impact on cost, compliance, and supply chains during product development are a necessity. By bringing data insights into product development and supply chains, Makersite comprises everything needed to embrace sustainable product design.”

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